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Tuesday, March 6, 2012

The Islamic Tradition of Breaking the Cross

Islam's Tradition of Breaking the Cross

by Mark Durie

This was no "furious mob" on a
"rampage," reacting to Koran-burning. These men are methodically,
deliberately, and in an organized fashion going about destroying crosses
and objects marked with crosses. Their mood seems happy.

In the recent destruction of Commonwealth war graves in Benghazi, Libya (YouTube Video), you can see not just the desecration of graves, but attacks on crosses.
The radical Muslims who are kicking over and smashing headstones
marked with crosses (and one with a Star of David), also took pains to
demolish a tall "Cross of Sacrifice" standing at the edge of the cemetery.
This was no "furious mob" on a "rampage," as a Daily Mail report
put it. Nor was there any evidence in what they were saying that they
were angry or reacting to Koran burning by the US military.
The men are methodically, deliberately, and in an organized fashion,
going about destroying crosses and objects marked with crosses. Their
mood seems happy. Every now and again the cry Allahu Akbar rings
out, or a chuckle of joy. They pass comments on the graves as they kick
them over: "Break the cross that belongs to those dogs," "This is the grave
of a Christian," and, "This tomb has a cross on it: a kaffir [disbeliever]."
An Australian government minister, Craig Emerson, whose father served in Libya in World War II, commented,
"There is nothing in Islam that would warrant this sort of
behavior." But is this true? Or just wishful thinking? Certainly many
Libyans and Muslims of other nationalities have expressed their
abhorrence of these acts. It would be completely wrong to attribute
sympathy for such an attack to Muslims as whole. But all the same, was
this attack on war graves truly senseless and without foundation or
precedent in Islam? Regrettably, the answer is "No." The phenomenon of
cross-destruction goes back to the life and example of Muhammad. A
tradition reported by al-Waqidi said that if ever Muhammad found an
object in his house with the mark of a cross on it, he would destroy it.
(W. Muir, The life of Muhammad. Volume 3, p.61, note 47.)
In the YouTube video, when one of the men says, "Break the cross that
belongs to those dogs," he uses the same classical Arabic phrase,
"break the cross" (the Arabic root is k.s.r 'break'), which is found
in a famous hadith (tradition) about Jesus — understood in Islam to be a
Muslim prophet — who will return to the earth as a cross-destroying
enforcer of Islamic Sharia law:

Narrated Abu Huraira: "Allah's Apostle said, 'By Him in
Whose Hands my soul is, surely [Jesus,] the son of Mary will soon
descend amongst you and will judge mankind justly [as a Just Ruler]; he
will break the cross and kill the pigs and there will be no jizya [i.e.
no taxation taken from non Muslims: because they will all be forced to
convert to Islam]. …'"
(Sahih al-Bukhari: The Book of the Stories of the Prophets. 4:60:3448.)

This phrase 'break the cross' is religious and ritualistic in its
overtones, invoking the canon of Islam. It is like a Christian saying
'forgive us our trespasses' in reference to the Lord's Prayer. This is a
clear reference to the words of Muhammad, and invokes his authority for
the deed being performed.
To pious Muslims, Muhammad is regarded as the "best example" for
Muslims to follow, so it is hardly surprising if his enmity to the cross
is shared by at least some Muslims today. The following are just some
of many examples of cross destruction which can be culled from media
reports of recent years:

Two days before Christmas in 1998, a Catholic church in Faisalabad, Pakistan had its crucifix pulled down by a Muslim leader.

In April 2007, in the Al-Doura Christian area of Baghdad, Muslim militants instructed Christians to remove visible crosses from atop their churches, and issued a fatwa forbidding Christians from wearing crosses.

When Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007, some of its militias went on a cross-destroying rampage.
The Rosary Sisters convent and school in Gaza was ransacked and looted
by masked men and crosses were specifically targeted for destruction. A
Christian resident of Gaza also reported having a crucifix ripped from
his neck by someone from the Hamas Executive Force, who said, "That is
forbidden."

On Monday 29 October 2007, in the Malaysian Parliament,
a parliamentarian, Tuan Syed Hood bin Syed Edros complained about the
"display of religious symbols' in front of church schools: 'I, as a
responsible person to my religion, race, and country, I state my views
that … these crosses need to be destroyed …'"

Antipathy to the cross among Muslims is not limited to Islamic
societies: In November 2004, Belmarsh Prison in England was reported to
have plans to spend £1.6 million on a mosque. The facility already
maintains a multi-denominational chapel, but this has been rejected
for use by the Muslim inmates, some of whom had been convicted on
terrorism charges, because the chapel contains crosses which have to be
covered up when the Muslims say their prayers.
No less a figure than the former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, was compelled to remove his pectoral cross
when he had to make a forced stop in Saudi Arabia in 1995. The incident
is described by David Skidmore in the Episcopal News Service:

Carey's flight out of Cairo for Sudan was forced to make an
intermediary stop in Saudi Arabia. On the approach to the Red Sea
coastal city of Jidda, Saudi Arabia, Carey was told to remove all
religious insignia, including his clerical collar and pectoral cross.

There is another pattern at work here, which is the destruction of
non-Muslim (infidel) graves and religious heritage. The Taliban's
destruction of Buddhist sites in Afghanistan is a well-known example, as
was the deliberate destruction of around 38,000 Jewish graves on the
Mount of Olives, some of which were over 1,000 years old, during
Jordan's occupation of Jerusalem from 1948 to 1967.
It must also be acknowledged that radical Sunni Muslims have a long
history of destroying Muslim graves as well, if they have become sites
of pilgrimage or veneration. The Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia have been
known for more than one hundred years for destroying venerated
gravesites, including those of some of Muhammad's own relatives (see a
Shi'ite lament here). In Libya, Salafists have also been busy destroying graves of Sufi saints. Likewise, in Somalia the al-Shabab movement has been destroying Sufi graves (as well as war graves of Christians: see here).
In the light of other parallels, the destruction of this cemetery
cannot be regarded as simply a senseless act done by a "rampaging mob."
It was a thoughtful, deliberate act, which conforms to a widely attested
pattern, namely the destruction of crosses, support for which can be
found in canonical Islamic sources and the teaching of Muhammad. It also
conforms to a pattern of destruction of gravesites, of both non-Muslims
and Muslims, by radical Muslims -- not with Koran-burning by the US
military.

Mark Durie is an Anglican vicar in Melbourne, Australia, and an Associate Fellow at the Middle Eastern Forum.

6 comments:

Thank you Mark for being our Christian voice. I feel saddened and inadequate in the face of such wanton destructive behaviour against what we hold important and sacred. Sometimes is seems, you are a voice crying in the wilderness as far as the church is concerned.

Examples of breaking crosses can also be found in the writings of the arab historians of the Crusades.

Ibn Al-Athir gives and example of a poem written after the fall of the fort Banyas to Saladin’s troops in 1179:"The destruction of the Franks came speedilyNow is the time to SMASH THEIR CROSSESHad the time of their death not been nearThey would not have built their House of Lamentations"D.S. Richards (tr.), The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir for the Crusading Period from al_kamil fi’l-ta’rikh, Part II, (England, Ashgate, 2007), p.266

Another historian Sibt Ibn Al-Jauzi writes that before Muslim army entered Damascus, a priest had gasered the Franks and he had before him "the Testaments and the crosses and the Holy Scriptures". When the Muslims entered the city they:"...killed 10,000, SMOTE THER CROSSES and their cavalry with Greek fire..."F. Gabrielli Arab Historians of the Crusades, (tr.) E.J. Costello (Oxon, Routledge, 2010), pp.37, 38

Ibn 'Abd Az-Zahir gives a text of a letter from Baibars to Bohemond VI after the capture of Antioch. In this letter Baibars describes what Bohemond would have seen if he was there:"You would have seen your knights prostrate beneath the horses’ hooves, your houses stormed by pillagers and ransacked by looters, your wealth weighed by the quintal, your women sold four at a time and bought for a dinar of your own money! You would have seen the CROSSES IN YOUR CHURCHES SMASHED, the pages of the false Testaments scattered, THE PATRIARCHS' TOMBS OVERTURNED. You would have seen your Muslim enemy trampling on the place where you celebrate the mass, cutting the throats of monks, priests and deacons upon the altars, bringing sudden death to the Patriarchs and slavery to the royal princes." F. Gabrielli Arab Historians of the Crusades, (tr.) E.J. Costello, (Oxon, Routledge, 2010), p.185

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About Me

Dr Mark Durie is an academic, human rights activist, pastor, Shillman-Ginsburg Fellow at the Middle East Forum, and Adjunct Research Fellow of the Arthur Jeffery Centre of the Melbourne School of Theology. He has published many articles and books on the language and culture of the Acehnese, Christian-Muslim relations and religious freedom. Holding a PhD in Linguistics from Australian National University and a ThD in Quranic Theology from the Australian College of Theology, he has held visiting appointments at the University of Leiden, MIT, UCLA and Stanford, and was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 1992.